KingofHearts
~~~
Nope, I am gay
what does heteronormative mean
whats with these made up words
why do they hate men so much
Hell yeah.
And it seems your mother has a biphobic way of thinking.
- - - Post Merge - - -
Heteronormativity isn't necessarily related to "man hate" though... and it's not made up either(or is, depending on where you stand on English language development). It's a perfect term to describe an oppressive system where assuming straight is the default and everything else is abnormal, or everyone's straight until proven otherwise - A.K.A. the one we live in. It's not difficult to see where issues can brew from this mindset, right?
So for an example, lemme bring up how this affects bi and pan people specifically. Yeah, it’s unsurprising considering we as a culture (and probably the world as a whole) are caught up in how things look. The struggle of bi/pan people is that unless we are with someone of the "same gender," we don’t "look" like we're LGBT+, even though we experience many of the same struggles with questioning and acceptance as lesbian/gay people do. With that in mind, I can only imagine for a-specs, looking the part can be significantly difficult, if not impossible. It’s the same struggle for poor people, biracial people, and disabled people, that if you don’t look enough of something then you can’t be part of that group even if you have the same shared experiences.
When it comes to sexual orientation, this is how prevalent heteronormativity is especially in US culture, which is defined by the immediate assumption that someone is cis and straight upon first glance. Many think that in order to fight that assumption, we must look different from it. Which is actually counterproductive because that idea actually reinforces heteronormativity.
To actually fight heteronormativity is to normalize the idea that we should never assume a person’s gender/orientation. That’s ultimately the bottom line, and for some reason that simple thought drives people nuts, as if anything else could solve this issue. It's so simple: People should be allowed to dress as they want, be with who they want, and be themselves without being scrutinized for things that are, frankly, no one else’s goddamn business.
Unfortunately... this ties back into we as a species are obsessed with labeling things based on how they look because that is how we make sense of the world, and when things appear that don’t fit into neat little boxes, we kinda go a bit bonkers. And we make up gross crap like ace and "bihet" discourse with this mindset that "the cishets are going to invade our spaces" as if LGBT+ can’t be homo/bi/trans-phobic themselves and people are making up labels because they want to be oppressed. Not saying those things don’t happen individually, but crapping on and shutting out entire groups for it is not the answer.
So you see, it's not just some "SJW BS" like those who're ignorant to this sort of thing would believe. And an extra note: It looks like you drove yourself into TERF territory with that Tumblr screenshot. Of course, man hating and all of that oppressed hating oppressors stuff is another story, but y'all get my point, right?
Unfortunately, my mom is very homophobic too, and she even has tried cutting off gay family members...